UK Government Admits Internet Porn Ban Flawed – Continues Anyway

[Len]

The Government’s Digital Minister, Matt Hancock, has quietly signed-off on a controversial impact assessment for the new Age Verification system, which underpins their plan to force all UK broadband ISPs into blocking websites that contain pornographic content (unless they use age verification).

Just to recap. The new Digital Economy Act 2017 (summary) will introduce an age-verification system for websites that contain pornographic content, which is due to be enforced from May 2018. Under this approach the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will gain the power to force ISPs and mobile operators into blocking porn websites that fail to put “tough age verification measures” in place.

On the one hand many people welcome this approach as it will help to make the Internet a safer place for children, but on the other hand it overlooks the fact that masses of adults enjoy viewing porn and most UK households do not have young children. Similarly all of the major ISPs already offer network-level filtering (Parental Control) features and there are lots of free alternatives for those who prefer to use smaller ISPs.

Similarly more than a few people and organisations, including the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights (here), have warned that the Government’s approach could have some damaging consequences. Others have also suggested that it might force those who work in the adult industry into more dangerous situations (example).

Lest we forget that nobody knows quite how to make an Age Verification system that works, at least not without forcing people to share their private personal and or financial details with unreliable porn peddlers. The infamous ‘Ashley Madison‘ hack highlighted just how dangerous such information could be in the wrong hands (multiple cases of blackmail and suicide etc.).

Despite this Matt Hancock did, on 12th Dec 2017, sign-off on an earlier Impact Assessment for the new Age Verification Regulator (here), which included a rather chilling list of the potential risks involved. Many of these have been highlighted before and so well done to the Government for acknowledging them, even though they intend to continue regardless because “the benefits justify the costs“.

Risks Identified by the Impact Assessment

• Deterring adults from consuming content as a result of privacy/ fraud concerns linked to inputting ID data into sites and apps, also some adults may not be able to prove their age online;

• Development of alternative payment systems and technological work-arounds could mean porn providers do not comply with new law, and enforcement is impossible as they are based overseas, so the policy goal would not be achieved;

• The assumption that ISPs will comply with the direction of the regulator;

• Reputational risks including Government censorship, over-regulation, freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

• The potential for online fraud could raise significantly, as criminals adapt approaches in order to make use of false AV systems / spoof websites and access user data;

• The potential ability of children, particularly older children, to bypass age verification controls is a risk. However, whilst no system will be perfect, and alternative routes such as virtual private networks and peer-to-peer sharing of content may enable some under-18s to see this content, Ofcom research indicates that the numbers of children bypassing network level filters, for example, is very low (ca. 1%).

• Adults (and some children) may be pushed towards using ToR and related systems to avoid AV where they could be exposed to illegal and extreme material that they otherwise would never have come into contact with.

The Impact Assessment for all this also estimated that it will cost an average of around £4.5 million to fully setup the regulator and that “large” ISPs could each expect to incur costs of between £100,000 to £500,000 to update their systems and block non-compliant websites (assumes a block of up to 50 sites per year at “DNS level“). Obviously big ISPs can deal with such a cost but smaller providers will struggle (network-level filtering is neither cheap nor easy to develop).

We note that MindGeek are one of those developing their own age verification solution (AgeID) and they intend to license this out to other sites (one-click verification across many sites), which could disadvantage those using other solutions that would require the user to re-verify.

MindGeek also run porn sites that make money by allowing users to upload video content (often this is pirated from other porn produces) and then monetising it via advertising. The company has also suggested blocking up to 4 million websites that contain adult content (including Twitter), unless they pay the MindGeek tax for AgeID, naturally.

Lest we forget the absence of proper judicial oversight for website blocking, which is often necessary in order to prevent poor censorship decisions and to secure independence from politicians or commercial firms.